


Z-O-M-B-I-E

by syrupwit



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Gen, Post-Movie(s), Post-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2018-10-19 02:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10629861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrupwit/pseuds/syrupwit
Summary: Comeback.





	1. Chapter 1

That August, they pulled Touga from the river. To Kyouichi’s eyes, he looked just like a single bone -- a rib bone, polished smooth and white by river sand -- but Nanami said it was Touga, and she was a witch now. They took him home, washed him, and put him on the couch. 

In the morning, they found a second rib bone lying by the first. 

“At this rate, he’ll never make a broth,” mourned Nanami. She was given to cracking uncomfortable jokes these days, on account of having spent millennia in hell as a cow. 

But she was wrong, because the next day, Touga was almost half a skeleton. A few more days and he started growing organs -- ah, the smell! They draped a sheet over the couch and took to eating out.

One week or so later, a noise woke Kyouichi in the middle of the night. He rose and crept down the hall, sword at his hip. Light shone in the kitchen, from inside the refrigerator. There was the sound of rummaging.

“Saionji!” Touga held his arms out, an open takeout container in one hand. The stained sheet pooled at his feet.

-

The corpse smell never left, no matter what soap Touga used or how much cologne he applied. He seemed paler and more angular than before, and his hair lacked luster, a fact he fruitlessly tried to remedy with dyes. In behavior, however, he remained much the same: gallant, imperious, secretive, and conscious of traffic safety. Talk spread of the handsome young man who had come to live with the witch and her silent companion.

Kyouichi was not silent by choice. He had been cursed, though apparently as an afterthought. Lugging around an AAC device embarrassed him, and he struggled to learn to sign. He had ended up making great use of that sophomoric article, the notebook. He had the feeling there was something he had forgotten about a notebook...

For her part, Nanami was at war. She put up charms and worked on potions. The charms mostly looked like bundles of knots, and the potions often smelled just like tea -- but who was Kyouichi to judge, or Touga? They had never been younger sisters.

Every animal in the neighborhood was Nanami’s enemy. Every insect, every bird. She tried to win them over with gifts and soft words. But the bowls of meat and milk remained untouched, the open bottles of fruit juice pristinely fly-less. Even the bird feeder stayed full, unvisited by squirrels or foxes. 

“They all belong to her. How can I compete?”

Nothing changed until Ruka arrived.


	2. Chapter 2

Ruka came down the pipes while Nanami was showering. He later claimed it was unintentional, but tell that to a pissed off witch wielding a freshly opened bottle of French luxury shampoo. He spent the first few hours of his new life knocked out on a futon, ice-pack on his head and spare pajamas at his side. Touga had gallantly volunteered to share.

Nanami went to the salon because her hair was ruined. Touga kept fidgeting like he wanted to tell Kyouichi something, but when he opened his mouth all that came out were things like, "I think you should make omurice for dinner," and "We've grown a lot since the last time we saw him," and "How does my skin look? Tight? Clean? Dry? Good. It ought to be."

When Ruka woke up, he was confused. Then he was perplexed. Then he was annoyed. Then Touga was stupid. Then Ruka was more annoyed. Then Touga was perplexed. Then Nanami came home. Then Kyouichi made omurice and tuned out the conversation.

"It's war," Nanami declared, as they sat down to dinner. The omurice hadn't turned out that well. Kyouichi sipped his beer -- he was a graduate, it was allowed -- and tried to hide his grimace as they all took their first bites. Ruka winced. Touga didn't. Nanami jammed a huge piece into her mouth and glared at everyone, cheeks bulging. She had been harassed by a flock of crows on the way home, and her once carefully styled updo unfurled about her face in frizzy, swirling ringlets.

"It's truly war now," said Nanami, swallowing. She washed the bite down a swig of beer. Her cheeks were tinted pink. "Before, the battle was simply between her and I, but now it's truly war! Not one among us hasn't been a victim of her schemes." She regarded them each with faintly bovine intensity. "My only question: Are you with me, or against me?"

-

It helped that Kyouichi rarely left home to begin with. After Ruka's second dog attack, and Touga's third daylight raccoon attack, and the time that Nanami had to fight off a swarm of wasps armed only with an umbrella and a can of sprayable sunblock, he stopped leaving the house altogether.

At night, stray cats of the neighborhood assembled in the yard. Their eyes shone green through the windows, but yellow through the screen door. Kyouichi sat on the couch at night watching them. Nanami sat beside him, muttering spells. Sometimes she made a charm. Sometimes she drank a potion. Sometimes the potion smelled like tea, or beer, or sake, or some unholy unstudied incorporation of the three. Sometimes the spells contained some very suspect musings regarding cats. (Nanami had hung charms in the bushes, and the cats had knocked all of them down.)

Sometimes Nanami said, grim pleasure in her tone, "We hurt her. She's in pain." Sometimes Nanami looked like she was in pain. Sometimes she wouldn't talk to any of them, and she and Kyouichi sat on the couch in silence while Ruka and Touga did whatever they did in their room. Honestly, Ruka? Well, Kyouichi supposed Touga took tips where he got them.

When the Chairman's VHS tape bubbled up out of the sink -- amazing! One moment a corner peeked its tip out of the drain, and the next the tape was all there, bobbing among the soapy dishes -- Kyouichi couldn't say he was surprised.


	3. Chapter 3

The Chairman's tape! It arrived in the morning, when Kyouichi was cleaning up after last night's dinner -- stubbly, hungover, gagging on the smell of used oil. In the next room, Touga performed his daily warm-up routine. (It never warmed him up.) Nanami tended to sleep in until late, and they weren't sure if Ruka was home yet. It turned out he was.

"Is that a VHS tape?" said Nanami, yawning as she strode into the kitchen. "Those are old now! _Très passé_." Then she saw the insignia in the middle of it, where the title label would usually be. The tape had almost dried since Kyouichi had set it in a dish of uncooked rice on the table.

"I don't know whether you'd be able to play it if you wanted to," she continued, her eyes narrowing in a way that her housemates had been conditioned to associate with maniacal laughter, attempts at public humiliation, and serious coupon savings at the grocery store. "It looks so old, I don't think it would even work."

There was a deep, subtle rumbling from the freezer. A suspiciously bulky, plastic rumbling. A sound like, ah -- ice creaking --

"Big brother!" Nanami bellowed.

-

What were they supposed to do?

-

It took a solid hour for the VHS player to thaw, and another half-hour figuring out how to hook it up to the television. 

The tape gushed over Ohtori-san's engagement (was that still on?), highlighted his leadership qualities (what leadership qualities?), praised his princely bearing (what bearing?). It featured footage of him mixing a cocktail. It featured footage of a lot of things. He had a new suit and hair style. Did his hairline seem to recede a little? Had that fine waistcoat frayed, or was it just the lens? The Chairman twirled his fiancé so her back was to the camera and shot a dazzling smile at the audience. The narrating voices went wild: Full points for Akio-san! He still had that earring, that earring... The tape had ended and Kyouichi was perseverating on a memory, the glint of that earring in the dark, when Nanami broke the silence.

"Ha! He thinks we'd fall for that again?"

"Nanami," Touga chastised. "He's still the Chairman."

"Chairman of what? He's a dead man!"

"Now that's not polite," said Ruka mildly.

"You can shove your politeness up your -- MOO!"

"Nanami!!"

"That hasn't happened in ages, see? He's already --"

"Already what?" said Kyouichi, in a voice that he hadn't used for what felt like a lifetime.

The television went blue, then fizzed with static, and the Chairman's face dominated the screen.


End file.
